Walgreens in future for High Springs?

HIGH SPRINGS – Representatives from Causseaux, Hewett & Walpole, Inc. (CHW), a Gainesville-based engineering and land planning company, requested a Site Review Committee meeting with High Springs city officials on March 6. The map they brought for review was of a potential site for a new Walgreen's Drug Store on U.S. 441 in High Springs.

The Site Review Committee is comprised of the city manager and heads of each department. The purpose of the review was to determine if the initial site plan for Walgreen's had any fatal flaws such as ingress/egress problems, or parking issues. The committee detected no major flaws in the design and gave CHW the “go ahead” to proceed.

City Manager Ed Booth displayed the site plan for commissioners at a workshop held later that night and said it would be located where Urban Threads and the gas station next door are presently, which is close to the CVS Drug Store location across U.S. 441.

However, in checking with Walgreen's home office in Illinois, nobody at that location was familiar with the proposed project. When contacted, Jerry Dedenbach, Director of Planning at CHW, seemed surprised that the possible location for a new Walgreens was known. The Site Review Committee is a public meeting, which Booth said led him to make the announcement when he did.

Dedenbach said his company searches across the state looking at hundreds of sites for their clients, but indicated that this site was only one of many sites they were reviewing.

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